Former Notts County keeper Adam Collins’ goalie academy on the rise

Former Notts County keeper Adam Collin is seeing his AC1 Goalkeeping Academy coaching project going from strength to strength.

He now has 85 keepers attending weekly sessions, aged from five up to adult.

In December we moved into our new training base at Robin hood colts at Edwinstowe, which now allows us to train on grass all year round,” said Collin, who is now playing for Carlisle United.

“We purchased our own set of portable floodlights with help from our main sponsor, Power Saving Solutions. These have been fantastic through the winter months.

“We start back training from 5th August onwards and we have some exciting plans which for the upcoming season on and off the pitch which will be announced in due course.

We now have good links with Mansfield Town Football Club and we have helped five goalkeepers get into Mansfield Town academy teams.”

AC1 have been busy with events near to home and as far away as Malta.

“We recently held our national Goalie Wars tournament at Eastwood, where we had over 100 goalies from all over the UK enter from U8s to adults,” he said.

“We believe this to be the largest Goalie Wars tournament in the UK and one which is getting larger each year.

“On Easter weekend we had 20 goalies travel up to Carlisle to have a training session with myself and Craig Wight the Carlisle first team keeper coach.

“They stayed over and on Easter Monday they were flag bearers at the Carlisle v Lincoln game and also got to do a half-time penalty shoot-out on the pitch.”

He added: “Earlier in the season we took 52 people Man City, we had a full tour of the stadium and training/academy facilities.

“We really do believe that, as well as the training and coaching, putting on experiences like these goes a long way to helping the young goalies progress.”

Their most recent event was a trip to Malta to take part in the Malta 2019 Goalkeeper Battle – their own version of Goalie Wars.

“We took 10 goalkeepers and their parents,” said Collin.

“This was the first time we had been abroad as a academy and it was a fantastic trip.

“We went for three nights and stayed at a fantastic four star all inclusive hotel and the kids and parents thoroughly enjoyed it.

“The tournament was fantastic played in 33 degrees heat!

“We had our U11 James Wheeler finish fourth and three other goalkeepers made it through to the knockout stage who were Keaton Brickles, Kacper Jurosec and Benjamin Staniforth.

“There were 200 goalkeepers in the tournament and all our goalkeepers did fantastically well.”

If anyone is interested in attending AC1 Goalkeeping Academy, you can contact them via their Facebook page.